Parliament after hours: The random laws MPs urgently passed over the weekend
Tuesday, 2 June 2026
Parliamentarians were locked in the capital over the weekend, with the House put into urgency after the Budget.
They debated an array of laws during the extra-long, extra-late sitting week. Parliament voted, among other things, to make it easier to host a boxing contest, amend the Patents Act, keep track of sperm donors, and increase monitoring of privately held gas stocks.
Parliament debated late into Thursday, and then from 9am Friday to 12:04am Saturday, resuming again at 9am before ending the urgent debate at 9:17pm on Saturday night. (During a normal sitting week, the House sits for three days; 2pm to 10pm on Tuesday and Wednesday, then for four hours on Thursday.)
On social media, National Party backbenchers – who were tasked with sitting in the debating chamber to hurry things along – said they had been busy with “Budget urgency”.
It’s normal that, after a Budget, the House moves into urgency to pass any urgent Budget-related legislation. But many of the bills being debated and voted on weren’t clearly related to the Budget.
This is what Parliament decided during a long week of late-night lawmaking:
Computers can make decisions for welfare applications
Social Development Minister Louise Upston introduced a bill that allows the Ministry of Social Development to implement automated decision-making.
The Social Security (Modernisation) Amendment Bill was introduced on Thursday, and had been voted through all stages of lawmaking by Friday night. That means the public had no opportunity to make submissions about the bill before it became law.
Police don’t need to sign off on boxing matches, no more Lotto tickets for kids
During a mishmash run of lawmaking, a mishmash bill (officially called an omnibus bill) was debated. It had a very dull name, the Regulatory Systems (Internal Affairs) Amendment Bill.
Beneath the title, the bill included widespread law changes impacting everything from weddings to boxing matches. A few interesting changes were:
- Although children generally hadn’t been able to buy Lotto tickets, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden said there was a loophole in the Gambling Act meaning they, legally, were allowed to. This bill removed that loophole.
The bill repealed the Boxing and Wrestling Act 1981. That act said every boxing and wrestling contest would need a permit, granted by police.
It created a process for passports to be cancelled if the passport data was compromised.
It also included detailed changes and review of the laws around sperm donations to fertility clinics, creating new powers for authorities to monitor clinics and prevent “over donation” from any one individual.
The Registrar-General of births, deaths and marriages would be able to omit information from certificates if there was “good reason to do so”, with this law change.
New loan shark watchdog
The process to change laws regulating the financial markets, and in particular, loan sharks, started early last year. But the final step of the law change happened under urgency on Saturday.
Changes to the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act (known in Wellington as the Triple C, FA), and the Financial Service Providers Act, would, Commerce Minister Cameron Brewer promised, simplify the process for getting a loan.
It would also change the responsibility for keeping watch of loan sharks from the Commerce Commission to the Financial Markets Authority.
This bill was loosely related to the Budget because it included the transfer of funding from the Commerce Commission to FMA, to take on that new duty.
Where’s the gas?
The Gas (Market Transparency) Amendment Bill was introduced under urgency, and voted through under urgency, meaning the public cannot have a say on it.
Energy Minister Simeon Brown said it would make it easier for the Government to collect and publish information about gas supplies in New Zealand.
Patent change
A change to the Patents Act, which protects intellectual property, will apply a stricter criteria for secondary “divisional” applications. This technical law change was introduced a year ago, but the entire bill was passed last month.
Actual Budget legislation
On top of all of that, the Budget urgency was used for some actual Budget debates.
After the initial Budget debate, the House got stuck in what’s called the “Appropriation Bill”. That formally allocates taxpayer money to the departments and services the Government wants to fund.
Then Parliament had to vote on a new piece of tax legislation, which formally enacted policy changes announced in the Budget. These included introducing a maximum threshold of $100,000 for donations qualifying for a tax credit, and a change to Working for Families that was meant to simplify the application process.
So, why the urgency?
As leader of the House, Louise Upston sets the Government’s agenda in Parliament.
She was the minister who called for MPs to sit into the weekend to debate these bills.
In a statement, she said the Government had a lot on.
“The National-led Government is an industrious one. The New Zealand public rightly expects its elected government to progress its legislative agenda, and this Government's legislative agenda is extensive, with over 40 pieces of legislation now sitting on the Order Paper,” Upston said.
She added that post-Budget urgency had become a tradition, “used by every Government in recent history”.
Although not every bill debated during post-Budget urgency was related to the Budget, they were all priorities for the Government, Upston said.
“Some of this legislation also needed to be passed in time for their commencement dates. To not pass these bills would needlessly delay their implementation.”